Shotokan Karate: Kihon, Kumite, Kata Paperback – August 15, 2009

If you like Shotokan this book is great

The book brings a short introduction of Shotokan Karate and a lot of color pictures of karate practice, including stances, kata, kumite and basic techniques. Very Interesting. I liked it.

To become proficient at any form of martial arts you have to understand and study the basic movements, sparring techniques, and forms. In "Shotokan Karate: Kihon-Kumite-Kata" author Joachim Grupp not only goes over these in detail but also covers the history of Shotokan Karate, Karate demands and characteristics, training techniques and etiquette, and the skill grading system. With this basis on which to build he then starts at page 37 covering the stances, sparring, and forms. This section is well written and easy to follow along with the descriptions so that you can perform the same actions. In addition to the writing there are sequences of photographs so you can visually see what is supposed to be happening as you go through the movements. Joachim Grupp has done a fine job of getting just the right number of photographs into the text. There are not so many that it makes the book excessively long and three or four pictures are used to illustrate a simple movement but there are enough pictures that you don't get lost trying to figure out how he went from one movement to the next. This is a recommended book for anyone interested in Shotokan Karate and provides an excellent reference for anyone practicing the techniques.